The cooling tower accident happened here in April 1978, 51 worker killed. It’s on the Ohio River near St. Mary’s in Pleasants County.
From the West Virginians for Energy Freedom & Others, April 7, 2023
If you are a Mon Power or Potomac Edison customer, we need your voice now! Submit your comments to the West Virginia Public Service Commission opposing the Pleasants Power Station bailout before April 14th.
First Energy is scheming to keep Pleasants Power Station open by forcing it on ratepayers like you. Not only is it an out-of-date, coal-fired power station that was actually scheduled to close in 2019, but even First Energy acknowledges that the plant is expensive to operate. The worst part is that we don’t even need the plant – we have enough power being generated in-state already to meet our needs!
First Energy has proposed that Mon Power and Potomac Edison customers pay more to keep the plant open another year while government officials decide whether the plant is to be permanently subsidized by ratepayers. If the plant doesn’t operate during that year, most families’ bills will go up by about $36 a year – but if the plant operates, bills will go up even more.
The Pleasants plant can already sell power into a regional power market, where it has to compete with other power plants. But the plant is no longer competitive, and the plant is facing serious environmental liabilities. First Energy wants ratepayers to subsidize the plant even though customers don’t need the plant, and even though First Energy’s own analysis acknowledges the plant’s many problems.
Worse, First Energy’s proposal would protect its own shareholders, while forcing West Virginia customers to bear all of the costs and risks. If First Energy’s scheme is successful, customers would be saddled with potentially massive costs and liabilities.
We’ve been here before. In 2017, Mon Power requested to buy the plant from another First Energy subsidiary. The PSC and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission both recognized the proposal as a risky deal for West Virginians. And as before, this current Pleasants bailout proposal would raise customer bills.
TAKE ACTION ~ Please sign the petition below and add some personal information* about how increased electric bills would affect your family or business. Personalize your letter: tell the Commissioners how increased rates will harm you and the people and businesses you love. Tell them why this is important to you.
*Data collected will be shared with the West Virginians for Energy Freedom coalition.
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CHARLESTON GAZETTE 11 APRIL 2023
FirstEnergy subsidiaries’ $36M rate hike proposal to keep Pleasants plant open drawing strong reaction
By Mike Tony, Gazette Reporter ~ mtony@hdmediallc.com
The fate of the Pleasants Power Station could depend on whether the West Virginia Public Service Commission approves a $36 million rate hike proposal submitted by FirstEnergy utilities they say would keep the plant open for the next 12 months.
A $36 million rate increase proposed by FirstEnergy’s West Virginia subsidiaries to keep the coal-fired Pleasants Power Station open is drawing strong reactions for and against it.
But the state unit charged with protecting ratepayer interests is still evaluating the controversial proposal opposed by other ratepayer advocate groups.
That unit, the Consumer Advocate Division, is reviewing the proposal filed by Mon Power and Potomac Edison March 31, division Director Robert Williams said Friday.
The division, an independent arm of the Public Service Commission, last week asked the utilities for additional information by April 17. Williams expressed concern about the companies’ cost for securing nitrogen oxide credits and hopes that cost will be cheaper than for the FirstEnergy-controlled Fort Martin Power Station in Monongalia County. “We will continue to gather information,” Williams said in an email.
Mon Power and Potomac Edison said in their rate hike proposal the Pleasants plant wasn’t allocated any nitrogen oxide credits beyond 2023 and has no credits to allow it to operate from May through September 2023.
The utilities have asked for a temporary surcharge to allow them to recover costs of keeping the Pleasants Power Station open for 12 months, beginning June 1.
The temporary surcharge the companies proposed would result in a 2.2% increase in total average monthly rates for residential and commercial customers, who would pay $2.67 and $8.44 more, respectively. Industrial customers would pay $4,416 more, or 2.4%.
The utilities said the surcharge would be subject to interim adjustments responding to significant expenses or under- or over-recoveries. They asked for the PSC to allow consideration of “longer-term components” in a new regulatory proceeding to come “in the near future.”
The utilities’ filing responded to a PSC requirement that the companies file a report by the end of March evaluating buying the Pleasants plant after a Consumer Advocate Division witness recommended they consider doing so.
The PSC included that requirement in its December resolution of a fuel cost recovery case filed by the companies that raised the surcharge customers pay to cover fuel costs by $91.8 million.
The witness, coal procurement analyst Emily Medine of Virginia-based Energy Ventures Analysis Inc., argued in written testimony that the Pleasants plant is in a better location for delivery of West Virginia coal and is equipped with emissions control technology that the Fort Martin plant lacks.
In their March 31 filing, the companies alluded to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s “Good Neighbor Plan” issued March 15 that targets nitrogen oxide emissions. The utilities noted the Fort Martin plant lacks selective catalytic reduction equipment to address those emissions.
Derrick Price Williamson, executive director of the West Virginia Energy Users Group, has seen enough already. He called it “patently unreasonable” for FirstEnergy subsidiaries to propose captive ratepayers foot the bill to allow the utilities more time to consider acquiring the Pleasants plant.
The companies have contended they don’t have enough time to evaluate whether to acquire and operate Pleasants on a long-term basis to avoid a plant shutdown and lose the plant’s employees.
West Virginia ratepayer and environmental advocates have said the utilities’ proposal would be a costly, unnecessary bailout of a plant that was propped up by the state Legislature in 2017 when it approved $12.5 million in annual tax breaks for the financially struggling plant.
Independent power producer Energy Harbor announced in March 2022 it planned to sell or deactivate the 1,368-megawatt Pleasants plant in Willow Island and that it would continue normal operations until June 2023.
Energy Harbor, which was known as FirstEnergy Solutions prior to its emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020, said the closures were required steps as part of a transition to carbon-free energy.
Mon Power and Potomac Edison recalled in their filing that Energy Harbor transferred the plant to Energy Transition and Environmental Management, a company that acquires retired power plants and landfills, in December 2022, to demolish the plant. Energy Harbor leased the plant back from Energy Transition and Environmental Management through May 31, the utilities noted.
Energy Harbor has stated employment at Pleasants will end by July 15 and that Energy Harbor will no longer have any leasehold or other Pleasants ownership interest starting the next day, the utilities said.
“FirstEnergy is proposing to fully insulate itself and its shareholders from any cost or risk associated with its assessment and decision-making process relative to Pleasants at the expense of manufacturing, industry, and all residential consumers of electricity served by Mon Power and Potomac Edison,” Williamson said. “And the fact is that nothing precludes [FirstEnergy] from considering the acquisition of Pleasants on its own dime.”
The PSC has received 84 letters of protest against the proposal since it was filed, according to PSC filings, many of them form letters from West Virginians for Energy Freedom, a coalition of individuals, nonprofit groups and businesses that champions locally owned renewable energy and efficiency technologies.
The PSC has received 14 online comments being treated as letters of support in that span, plus written testimony from
Pleasants Power Station employee Craig Straight urging the PSC to approve the utilities’ proposal. He warned of an “indeterminable gap” in employment and tax revenue for the community if the plant closes.
The Public Service Commission has set an evidentiary hearing for 9:30 a.m. Friday, April 21 in its Charleston building.
All written comments on the proposal from Mon Power and Potomac Edison should state the case name and number and be addressed to Karen Buckley, Executive Secretary, P.O. Box 812, Charleston, West Virginia 25323 and be filed no later than April 14.
Public Comments may also be filed online by clicking the “Formal Case” link at:
http://www.psc.state.wv.us/scripts/onlinecomments/default.cfm
SOURCE: https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/energy_and_environment/firstenergy-subsidiaries-36m-rate-hike-proposal-to-keep-pleasants-plant-open-drawing-strong-reaction/article_e5fa3e28-9b9c-590a-a3f4-8c5821150f20.html
Remembering Willow Island, 45 years later
From Chris Lawrence, Metro News, April 26, 2023
ST. MARY’S, W.Va. — Thursday marks the 45th anniversary of one of West Virginia’s darkest days and one of the most horrific construction accidents in United States history.
On April 27, 1978, 51 men climbed the scaffolding of their workplace to continue the upward construction of a cooling tower at the Willow Island Power Station in Pleasants County. However, around 10 a.m. the massive tangle of scaffolding, which was connected to the inside walls of the tower itself, pulled loose and the entire structure crashed to the ground. All 51 men on the scaffold were killed.
Eula Bingham was the head of OSHA at the time and recalled being asked by President Jimmy Carter days after visiting the site to tell him about it.
“We were standing by a desk and he said, ‘I want to know what happened at Willow Island.’ I started to describe it and he said, ‘It was green concrete wasn’t it.’ I said, ‘Yes Mr. President it was,” Bingham recalled in a 2016 interview for the Center for Construction and Research Training about her career in occupational safety.
The contractor building the tower was under mounting pressure to speed construction. A new lift of concrete was being added every day on the site and the scaffolding was climbing upward and attached to structure’s walls. However, the concrete was not being given adequate time to cure. Investigators say weather conditions significantly weakened the structure.
“They had not tested the concrete. It’s a little thing, but that was a warm spring and it rained a lot. This tower, the concrete layers just collapsed,” said Bingham in the interview.
Bingham, who died in 2020, recalled arriving at the scene of the disaster on the day it happened. She said family members were all inside a tiny building on the property awaiting word from investigators and state officials. It was a scene which haunted her for the rest of her life.
“There were mostly old men and young women, middle aged women, older women, and children sitting there. They looked at me with glazed eyes. I was so taken with this that even today I want to cry when I think about it,” she said.
The contractor was using a new technique for building the tower and was so secretive about it they didn’t even keep the blueprints for the building on site for fear the new technique would be stolen.
The project was halted for a long period of time, but eventually resumed. For many years afterward a distinct line could be seen in the cooling tower which marked the exact spot in construction the tragedy had occurred. The line was a reminder to everyone in the community about the horrible day. Eventually a monument was erected within site of the towers which included the names of all 51 who were killed in the tragedy.
Source: https://wvmetronews.com/2023/04/26/remembering-willow-island-45-years-later/